act_runner/examples/vm/rootless-docker.md

Using Rootless Docker withrunner

Here is a simple example of how to set up runner with rootless Docker. It has been created with Debian, but other Linux should work the same way.

Note: This procedure needs a real login shell -- using sudo su or other method of accessing the account will fail some of the steps below.

As root:

• Create a user to run both docker and runner. In this example, we use a non-privileged account called rootless.

 useradd -m rootless
 passwd rootless
 apt-get install -y uidmap # Not mentioned but needed for docker rootless.

• Install docker-ce

• (Recommended) Disable the system-wide Docker daemon

  systemctl disable --now docker.service docker.socket

As the rootless user:

• Follow the instructions for enabling rootless mode
• Add the following line to the /home/rootless/.bashrc:

for f in ./.bashrc.d/*.bash; do echo "Processing $f file..."; . "$f"; done

• Create the .bashrc.d directory mkdir ~/.bashrc.d
• Add the following lines to the /home/rootless/.bashrc.d/rootless-docker.bash:

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/home/rootless/.docker/run
export PATH=/home/rootless/bin:$PATH
export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/$(id -u)/docker.sock

• Reboot. Ensure that the Docker process is working.
• Create a directory for saving runner data between restarts

mkdir /home/rootless/runner

• Register the runner from the data directory

 cd /home/rootless/runner
 runner register

• Generate a runner configuration file in the data directory. Edit the file to adjust for the system.

 runner generate-config >/home/rootless/runner/config

• Create a new user-levelsystemd unit file as /home/rootless/.config/systemd/user/runner.service with the following contents:

 Description=Gitea Actions runner
 Documentation=https://gitea.com/gitea/runner
 After=docker.service

 [Service]
 Environment=PATH=/home/rootless/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/rootless/bin:/home/rootless/bin:/home/rootless/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
 Environment=DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1001/docker.sock
 ExecStart=/usr/bin/runner daemon -c /home/rootless/runner/config
 ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
 WorkingDirectory=/home/rootless/runner
 TimeoutSec=0
 RestartSec=2
 Restart=always
 StartLimitBurst=3
 StartLimitInterval=60s
 LimitNOFILE=infinity
 LimitNPROC=infinity
 LimitCORE=infinity
 TasksMax=infinity
 Delegate=yes
 Type=notify
 NotifyAccess=all
 KillMode=mixed

 [Install]
 WantedBy=default.target

• Reboot

After the system restarts, check that therunner is working and that the runner is connected to Gitea.

 systemctl --user status runner
 journalctl --user -xeu runner